


Centres Small And Still

by Sylphidine_Gallimaufry



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Astronomy, Blacksmithing, Christmas Fluff, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fusion of Rise of the Guardians (2012) and Guardians of Childhood Series, Gen, Hair, Hobbies, Musical Instruments, Oral History, ROTG Secret Santa 2019, Secret Santa, Team as Family, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Weaving, how to relax if you're immortal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:24:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21990442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylphidine_Gallimaufry/pseuds/Sylphidine_Gallimaufry
Summary: Jack challenges his fellow Guardians to take up hobbies, so that they can relate to children more easily.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57





	Centres Small And Still

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for RotG Secret Santa 2019, as a gift for LunarLittleLight on Tumblr.

_The feathered coordinator found it much more difficult to sit than to hover._

_The lagomorph artist sighed and resigned himself to eating more chocolate._

_The golden dreamweaver pored over a heavy tome._

_The ruffian designer turned his attention to the tresses between his fingers._

_The flighty mirthmaker screwed his eyes tightly shut and murmured to himself._

* * *

The looks that went around the room, from Guardian to Guardian, ranged from bewildered to downright panicked.

Jack Frost had guessed their reactions before he’d even voiced the question, but even he was discouraged. One would have thought he’d asked them all to slice children up and roast them on a spit, rather than asking Sandy, North, Tooth and Bunny if they had any hobbies.

He sighed internally, and forged ahead.

“I know ‘serious” isn’t a word that you usually associate with me, but I’m serious… doesn’t ANYBODY in the spirit world know how to relax?”

"Jack, you need to understand that we've been doing our jobs for centuries…" That was Tooth, ever the mediator.

Jack countered, “That’s exactly what I mean, Tooth! Your JOBS. Why are you - all of you - denying yourselves the chance of a little fun? Something just for you.”

"What we do takes all our energy, all our brain power. The Man in the Moon didn't entrust the kids to lollygaggers." Of course Bunny would bring that up. Even though they'd made a lot of progress towards friendship in the years since Jack became a Guardian, Jack still felt an undercurrent of wariness from the Easter Kangaroo in most of their interactions.

Surprisingly, both Sandy and North were silent. Well, of course Sandy was silent.. He was always silent, in the literal sense. But he was listening earnestly to what Jack was saying, and listening to the others’ replies, without interjecting any of his sand-signs as either protest or affirmation.

North’s silence registered more loudly to Jack’s mind’s ear than Bunny’s bluster. The winter spirit began to wonder if he’d offended the big Russian somehow.

Fortunately a booming laugh burst forth from the Guardian of Wonder’s vaunted belly, and Jack relaxed a touch. After a moment, North said, “Ah, Jack. Again, you get straight to point. You don’t let us forget how to make time for children, and for this you are good Guardian.”

“Yes, but That’s only half of it, you guys. Haven’t you ever heard the expression, ‘you can’t take care of other people if you don’t take care of yourself?’ And that means doing something completely unrelated to your job. Pastimes, hobbies… doing something to recharge your batteries.”

His voice dropped into a lower register. 

_**“ ‘You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. ‘ “** _

Across the room, Sandy nodded, sending up sand-sigils of birds and fish, wizards and knights.

Tooth let out her breath in a long exhalation. “Jack, that was beautiful.”

“Oh, it’s not mine,” Jack replied. “I have a lot of stuff I’ve memorized… books, poems, songs. There are worse hobbies to have.” He rubbed one thin hand over his hair and along the back of his neck. “Kind of helped pass the time over the centuries when no one could see me.” 

He had all their attention on him now; Jack could practically hear the wheels turning. He kept going in order not to lose the momentum. “Kids’ belief is wonderful, it really is. But believing in yourself, your strengths, knowing your center… that sometimes means surprising yourself with accomplishing something you didn’t know you could do.”

“And your suggestion is for each of us to stop doing what we’re supposed to be doing, and do something we… enjoy?” Bunny interjected.

“Got it in one, Cottontail.”

Bunny scowled, but didn’t argue. Encouraged, Jack continued. “Look, it’s July. North’s got six months until Christmas, Bunny’s got at least eight months before Easter, Tooth’s got to be slightly less busy if she’s not collecting teeth from winter-based accidents, and Sandy can take it easier in the Northern hemisphere at least, with shorter nights…there’s no better time that any of us are going to have where deadlines aren’t creeping up on us.” He held up his hand to stave off their protests. “I mean it. Stop thinking about deadlines. Just try it. Set aside some time every day or every couple of days. Then when we all get together again, we can show off what skills we’ve picked up or hobbies we’re doing to relax.” 

After a bit more back-and-forth, the Guardian meeting broke up, each heading back to their realms and duties, four of them ruminating on the “fun times versus deadlines challenge” issued by their newest member.

Said newest member muttered to himself regarding said challenge as he flew towards the Andes for his next round of winter weather delivery, “t may live to regret this.” 

* * *

Four months later, the _aurora borealis_ signal went out over the night sky in the Northern hemisphere. Jack was in the middle of bringing an early storm system to the Eastern United States, but was happy to let Wind carry him away to North’s Workshop. 

A little prickle of worry crept into his mind as he flew. It was November. Wouldn’t North be too busy with Christmas preparation to be holding a Guardian meeting? Was he, Jack, about to be put back on the Naughty List?

He needn’t have worried. They were all gathered in the Globe Room, the lights of believers twinkling merrily on the surface of every continent. Bunny stood next to the fireplace, arms folded, but his eyes were fond instead of scoffing. Tooth and her mini-fairies darted to and fro, but their movements were far less frenetic than usual. The Sandman raised a tankard of eggnog in salute. North bellowed “Jack Frost!” in the same hearty fashion as he had always done.

“Hey, gang. What’s the emergency?”

“Is no emergency. Is progress report!”

Jack couldn’t help but grin. “So you really did it? You all took my advice? Tell me, tell me, although I might not be able to hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.”

“Jack, behave!” interjected Tooth in a voice that was half-shocked and half-amused. “Yes, if you must know, you were absolutely right. And we all want to show you HOW we’ve been spending our…” she looked at the others as she fumbled for the unfamiliar term, “our downtime? If that’s the right word.”  
  
“Yeah, downtime is right, sheila,” said Bunny. “But yours and my little projects aren’t exactly portable. So we’re invitin’ ya, snowflake, along with everyone else, to see what we’ve had going since we last all met.”

“Now? Right now?” Jack flipped himself over in the air in delight, missing Baby Tooth’s chirrup of alarm, Sandy’s miming of fastening seatbelts, and Bunny’s crafty grin as he tapped his hind paw on the ground to make a tunnel. With a whoosh, all six found themselves in the lush gardens of the Warren.

“Down time, ha, ha. Very amusing.” North growled and then muttered a few choice words in Russian.

While the pile of Guardians plus one mini-fairy was disentangling themselves, Jack noticed a structure next to the egg-colour river that had not been there on his last visit. It looked to be an open shed, with a firepit in the middle, and… was that an anvil?

Tooth fluttered forward and beat Jack to the question by exclaiming, “Bunny! You really did it, you took up blacksmithing!”

Once they were all back on their feet, North slapped the Pooka on the shoulder, making Bunny stumble. “How many arms did you grow this time, old friend?”

“Just the four,” was the terse reply as the Guardian of Hope led them to his forge.

“THIS time?” Jack asked, but no one paid him any mind. They were too busy looking at the beautiful wrought-iron objects hanging on the shed’s walls. The frost spirit was equally impressed, letting out a heartfelt “wow” at the craftsmanship.

Bunny looked Jack in the eye for once, rather than the side-eye Jack was used to, quite gratified at Jack’s admiration for his work. “I’ll bet you thought yerself clever as a dunny rat when you came up with this ‘relaxation’ scheme, but I’ve got to admit that it’s definitely been fun. And since fun is your department… well, yeh, I’ll say it. You were right, mate.”

Jack let out a whoop of joy and fist-bumped Sandy, then Tooth, then North. “You all heard that, right? I’m not imagining it?”

They all laughed. Baby Tooth flew to his shoulder and started to preen his hair. 

“I’m anxious to show you MY results,” said Tooth. North grinned at that, saying, “Trust Toothie to think of hobby as science.”

“Now really, North… I think both your project and mine are artistic as well as practical.”

North put a finger to the side of his nose, eyes twinkling, and pulled a snowglobe from his pocket. In a caressing tone, he murmured “Tooth Palace.”  
  
They all stepped into the swirling vortex and came out into an empty room.

Or nearly empty. In the middle of the floor stood a foot-treadle loom with a low bench built in. The loom was strung with brightly-coloured yarns. The Tooth Fairy was in a flutter to show them how it worked. Placing her hands lovingly on the shuttle, she said, “It’s going to be either a blanket or a wall hanging, I haven’t made up my mind which.”

Sandy floated over to get a better look, his face wreathed in smiles. With one chubby finger, he pointed to the strands of gold, red, blue, violet and green, and then at each of them in turn. Tooth blushed. “Well, yes, Sandy, you do all inspire me. And it feels good to be using my sword-muscles for something that’s creative rather than destructive.”

She flew over to sit at the bench, which had been lowered so her feet could reach the treadles. Her wings were folded at her back, but her hands and legs were a blur of motion as the warp and weft took shape before their eyes. 

North sniffled and wiped his eyes. “Ah, Toothie, you remind me of old times and old friends.” Jack was struck by a memory of something he’d read long ago about the patron saint of weavers, and resolved to ask his fellow Guardians about it at a later point. For now, he applauded, and Bunny and Sandy joined him.

Eventually, as was the wont of Guardian gatherings, Tooth and Sandy needed to leave on their nightly duties, and Jack felt the pull of more snowstorm-wrangling in Canada. They all left the Tooth Palace with promises to regroup at the North Pole on January 7th.

* * *

They congregated in the heavily-timbered Great Room at Santoff Claussen, with its two roaring fireplaces and its comfortable chairs and settees. North was garbed in his _Ded Moroz_ robes of blue and white, and bade them all welcome.

Sandy, however, seemed unable to restrain himself from bobbing up and down. He gestured at North impatiently, and North replied with a laugh, “Very well, very well! We shall bring forth your discoveries!” At some silent signal, four Yeti came into the room, each bearing a pile of books and journals, which they spread out on a long table in the corner with Bunny’s help.

Intrigued, Jack and Tooth hovered and gazed at some of the titles… three volumes of BURNHAM’S CELESTIAL HANDBOOK… Douglas Hofstader’s GODEL, ESCHER, BACH: THE ETERNAL GOLDEN BRAID… a treatise called “Revealing the Mass Loss Structures of Four Key Massive Binaries Using Optical Spectropolarimetry” by Jamie Lomax… UNDERSTANDING STELLAR EVOLUTION by Emily Levesque… a lovingly bound and rebound leather book that turned out to be the “Almanac Arzachel” by Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī.

Sandy looked ready to scowl at his fellow Guardians if they should make any derogatory statement about his tastes in “light reading”. When only admiration and interest greeted him, he began to cheerfully describe his findings in his own unique way, with Bunny and North taking turns translating.

It turned out to be quite the lesson in history as well as in astronomy; Guardians and Yeti all found it surprisingly enjoyable. 

The Yetis all had braids and beads woven into their long mustaches, making them look particularly festive; North noticed Jack observing his helpers and forestalled the question by saying, “Ah, I see you find hint of my project.” He got up from his massive armchair and started to pace. 

Jack raised an eyebrow; Bunny’s ears twitched; Sandy sent a question mark sigil upwards; Tooth grinned, as she alone had an inkling of what the former bandit king had been up to since July.

North’s expression was unexpectedly grave as he spoke. “I must confess, I cheated. I learned one pastime not enough for me, I must find way of doing more and more. First pastime turned into new project for Christmas holiday, but the second… ah, that became true hobby.”

He waved at his hirsute colleagues. “Phil and Henrietta helped me find man who makes wigs for sick children; I thought to take up hair styling. Something different from toymaking. But more wigs I work on, more sick children I find, and…” He spread his hands to demonstrate the sheer scope of what he was trying to convey. “Too much. Too many children who need many things! Time to get help, and Yetis happy to help… as you can see from their decorations.”

North sighed. “So good idea, but not what I set out to do for relaxing.” 

Jack scratched his head. "You said that there was a second pastime?"

And, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, North's smile dispelled any remaining worry. "I find my old _gusli_!"

He slammed his great hands together like a thunderclap, causing the more intrepid elves who were trying to snag unguarded refreshments to scatter. One of the Yeti lumbered out of the room, bringing back a nine-stringed instrument shaped like the wing of a bird, with a soundhole between the fretboard and the head where the strings were tightly wrapped.

North returned to his armchair and cradled the _gusli_ gently on his lap. Bunny, Tooth, Sandy and Jack gathered round to sit on the rug near his booted feet, poking out from the white fur-trimmed hems of North’s blue robe.

For more than an hour North played, plucking the strings with love and care. Old holiday carols, songs of battle, songs of romance, some hummed, some sung lustily. His fellow Guardians were too enraptured to applaud, but when the _gusli_ ’s strings stopped vibrating and North sank back tiredly in his chair, Jack felt something bubble up in his heart, like a wave crashing over the banks of a river.

Jack closed his eyes and began to recite, the Finnish names tripping surprisingly easily off his tongue:

__

_**“Some bones were left on the crag** _

_**fishbones on the rock.** _

_**Steady old Väinämöinen** _

_**at that looks at them —** _

_**looks at them, turns them over;** _

_**he uttered a word, spoke thus:** _

_**“I wonder what these —** _

_**these pike-teeth, this wide** _

_**jawbone — could become** _

_**were they in a smith’s workshop** _

_**with a skilful craftsman, in** _

_**a mighty man’s hands?”** _

_**The smith Ilmarinen said:** _

_**“What’s nothing becomes nothing** _

_**a fishbone no tool** _

_**even in a smith’s workshop** _

_**with a skilful craftsman, in** _

_**a mighty man’s hands.”** _

_**Steady old Väinämöinen** _

_**put this into words:** _

_**“But surely these could become** _

_**a** _ **kantele** _**of fishbones** _

_**were there someone who knew how** _

_**who could make an instrument of bones.”** _

_**When no one else came forward** _

_**and there was none who knew how** _

_**who could make an instrument of bones** _

_**steady old Väinämöinen** _

_**made of himself a maker** _

_**took the shape of a shaper:** _

_**he made an instrument of pike bones** _

_**produced a joy forever.”** _

No one spoke after that.

As the moments of silence stretched awkwardly on, Jack was afraid to open his eyes. They popped open involuntarily when he was suddenly wrapped in arms furry, feathered, and fabric-clad, in the best hug he’d ever experienced.

He had a family again.

**Author's Note:**

> Footnotes!
> 
> 1] The first piece Jack recites is a quote from THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING by T.H. White, the famous, "if you're sad, learn something" passage. Over three hundred years of invisibility, Jack would have had a LOT of reasons to be sad, and a lot of opportunities to learn things in the progress of decades and centuries.
> 
> 2] The second piece Jack recites is from THE KALEVALA, a Finnish epic, and the passage is from the tale of "The Pikebone Harp".


End file.
